Isaiah 41:13-14 “…for I myself will help you, declares the Lord…”
“You have cancer.” He said it as unemotional as one might say, “Have a nice day” when you’ve been handed a receipt after buying groceries. There was little time for me to comprehend what was happening before the doctor let out another little ditty, “Now, don’t you cry, I’m going to put a tube down your nose into your stomach!”
Don’t cry; don’t cry…what are you kidding me? You’ve just handed me a death sentence and you’re telling me not to cry! Was this really happening? Don’t I get a say in what you’re about to do? Hey wait a minute…what was that? Ohhhhhhhhhhh Noooooooooo….!!!!
He saved my life that young emergency room doctor. He had been in Iraq for two tours before coming to Bethlehem and taking up his residency here. He had seen enough combat duty to recognize a critical situation and to know that this was a matter of life and death. I had been vomiting for three and a half days; I was dehydrated and my electrolytes were way out of range. I was pale and weak with extremely low potassium levels. I was dying. Two days later I was on the operating room table as surgeons removed a tumor that was completely blocking my small intestines. But, they couldn’t get the “big” tumor; they said it was wrapped around the aorta and was three times the size of the smaller one. The surgeon said it would have been ‘catastrophic’ to try to remove it and I would have died on the table. “Tough luck, take care.” “Have a nice day.”
“There is no protocol for this type of tumor anywhere in the country,” the cancer specialist told me. “Nothing can be done; go home and get your affairs in order.” “No effective chemo for this type of cancer; no radiation. Nothing we can do but monitor the situation.…” just another day at the oncologist office. “Have a nice day.”
One of the things satan counts on is that we run scared when faced with insurmountable odds. One of the things I counted on was God. He was in the midst of all this and I knew that when I met that young emergency room doctor. Who gets a combat veteran in the ER except on TV?
Over the course of the next eleven months I went into spiritual battle …thirteen oncologists – fired! Surgeons relieved of duty! Doctors, hospitals, medicines eliminated! I’m telling you it was like Jericho; they just came tumbling down. Every corner I turned; every doctor I talked to; every research paper I read… wiped out! No cure, no treatment, no protocol, nothing, nowhere, no way! The battle was over…Have a nice day.
When a general surrenders in battle there’s a ceremony with much pomp and circumstance. You’ve seen it or at least heard about it. Officers come together and sign papers of surrender handing over their guns or swords or commands. Then each side retreats to their own camp to clean up and go home. Satan did just that… but God didn’t.
Ok, one more time around the insurance providers list…and there she was…a new doc in town from South Africa. Harvard and Yale educated, MD, Oncology, with a Ph capital D!!! A researcher; a foreigner, a brainiac…whoa momma could it be? I called, I went. Who gets a doctor from Harvard AND Yale?
She sent me to New York, to the Long Island Jewish Hospital to see a doctor, a doctor she went to Yale with, from overseas – chairman of surgery, chief of surgery. He took one look at my case and said, “I’ll try…” Who gets the chairman and chief of surgery?
“Wake up, wake up Irene,” they stood over me crying, my husband and my best friend, “They got it; they got it all…you’re cancer free.” Three months later I was back in a Bethlehem hospital with a breast tumor. A year later and there were three more tumors. Now I’m stable for two years. No new growths; tumors remain fixed and stable.
And so it goes, from one year to another, one scan to the next, one prayer at a time. He is directing my path and I’m writing to testify to someone reading this blog today. Life is difficult (John 16:33). God is in control (Psalm 54:4). Cast all your cares upon Him (1 Peter 5:6-8). And now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20).
And my personal favorite…
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40: 28-31)
And to those doctors and nurses and surgeons and oncologists who need to know all of above ways of the Lord? Well, I pray for them – a lot! I hope you will too.
Have a nice day!
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